GPT-5 AI is making waves in 2025, but is it truly evolving, or is it just overhyped? GPT-5 is finally out. But before you join the AI hype, here’s what OpenAI and Sam Altman aren’t telling you about the model’s real capabilities.
GPT-5 has arrived, marking another milestone for OpenAI. Tech experts, investors, and AI enthusiasts around the world hoped it would usher in the next chapter of artificial intelligence, one closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI). But as the dust settles, however, many are realizing that the jump from GPT-4 to GPT-5 is perhaps more of a small step than a revolution.
With months of hype and sweeping claims made by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, GPT-5 is turning out to be an incremental update rather than a breakthrough.
What GPT-5 Promised: Expectations for a New Era of AI
When Sam Altman had published his “Gentle Singularity” essay in June 2025, it became clear: humanity was getting closer to digital superintelligence. The hopes for GPT-5 reached new heights, with everyone anticipating:
- Human-level reasoning
- Deep emotional understanding
- Fully autonomous AI agents
- Disruptions in tech, health care, and finance
In other words, people expected true AGI, an intelligent machine capable of matching or surpassing humans in nearly every field.
The Reality Check: What GPT-5 Actually Delivers
But when GPT-5 officially launched in early August, reality painted a different picture.
According to a report by The Information, GPT-5’s core upgrades lie in two areas:
Improved coding capabilities
Better performance on complex math problems
That’s it. Even internally, OpenAI researchers originally labeled GPT-5 as GPT-4.5 because it lacked the kind of advancement seen between GPT-3 and GPT-4. Altman himself shared underwhelming examples, such as the model writing a difficult email and generating a list of thought-provoking TV shows about AI.
This is not what the public expected from the most powerful large language model to date.
GPT-5 Limitations: Diminishing Returns and Data Constraints
One of the greatest challenges that OpenAI encountered in creating GPT-5 was diminishing high-quality training data. Since language models such as GPT are trained from enormous datasets web-scraped from the internet, there is little fresh, accurate, and varied data available.
Worse, adding more computing power to large models is yielding diminishing returns. AI expert Gary Marcus summed it up perfectly:
“Pure scaling is not getting us to digital superintelligence. Returns are diminishing.”
Yunyu Lin, an AI researcher at Penrose, reported that multiple models, including OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini, degraded over time. Even when performing basic accounting tasks in QuickBooks, error rates jumped to 15% within a year. OpenAI’s own models were the most unstable frequently getting stuck in infinite loops.
AI Code, Bugs & Failures: Why Human Experts Still Matter
While GPT-5 has improved at writing software, it’s far from replacing developers. Several reports suggest:
- AI-written code often contains critical bugs
- Some AI agents have deleted entire databases accidentally
- Legal and medical content generated by AI often lacks nuance and accuracy
In brief, GPT-5 can aid professionals but not substitute for them. Software programmers, accountants, and writers continue to be integral in quality assurance, ethics, and problem-solving in the real world.
OpenAI’s Business Is Still Booming in 2025
Despite its limitations, GPT-5 is a financial success. OpenAI is set to exceed its $12.7 billion revenue projection for 2025 and is in talks to raise up to $40 billion in funding. The company is spending nearly $8 billion this year alone to train and improve its AI models. This growth is also influencing employment trends. Discover how GPT AI is transforming AI and shaping the future of jobs.
And with a potential IPO in 2026, investors remain optimistic. GPT-5 is not revolutionary, but incremental gains are already worth their weight in gold to organizations that are implementing AI to boost productivity, customer service, and content generation.
What’s Next? GPT-6, GPT-7, and the Road to AGI
Altman has suggested that the future of AI may unfold over the next “3 or 4 model generations.” If so, GPT-6 or GPT-7 may finally deliver on the AGI dream but that’s far from guaranteed.
The pattern so far? Hype builds. Expectations soar. And reality lags behind.
Unless AI research can transcend present data, reasoning, and consistency limitations, the gap between promise and delivery will not narrow.
Final Thoughts: Hope, Hype, and the Hard Truths About AI
GPT-5 AI is certainly a technological marvel. However, it’s not the revolution that many had anticipated. Instead of superintelligence emerging, we are seeing the steady improvement of AI tools that still heavily rely on human oversight, testing, and direction.
Thus, GPT-5 is indeed intelligent. Not much more so, though.
